FIFA won’t comment on report that board members’ pay doubled

FIFA president Sepp Blatter peers over a barrier as he takes his seat for the group E World Cup soccer match between Honduras and Ecuador at the Arena da Baixada in Curitiba, Brazil, on Friday. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — FIFA has declined to comment on claims that annual payments were doubled for executive committee members after their bonuses were stopped.

British newspaper The Sunday Times reported that the 25 board members now get a $200,000 stipend for their part-time duties.

“We do not comment on allegations,” FIFA spokeswoman Delia Fischer said Sunday at a daily World Cup briefing.

Fischer said executive payments are decided by a remuneration panel. It was created as part of FIFA reforms started in 2011 after a series of financial and election scandals.

The three-man group is led by FIFA’s audit committee chairman Domenico Scala and includes FIFA senior vice-president Julio Grondona of Argentina.

Scala stopped bonuses for board members last December, at meetings on the sidelines of the World Cup draw.

“There was no relationship in logic for them,” Scala, a Swiss industrialist, later told The Associated Press in an interview.

Payments to executives, including President Sepp Blatter’s salary, are not disclosed in FIFA’s financial report.

In 2013, FIFA paid $36.3 million to “key management personnel.”

Reports that FIFA board members could collect payments in cash were also dismissed Sunday.

“They don’t get cash for anything. There is always bank transfers,” Fischer said, adding that “in the past, people have been receiving cash, for example, for their daily allowance.”